The present invention relates to stoves having solid fuel fired combustion chambers, and more particularly, to a fuel feed mechanism for reliably and uniformly feeding fuel pellets to the stove's combustion chamber for efficient and low pollution combustion.
Solid fuel feed systems often employ an auger based fuel transport mechanism. These auger systems commonly suffer from jamming due to pellets catching in the auger. An auger jam can burn out the control motor of the feed system. More importantly, the auger jam can result in a "burn back", or other hazardous ignition of fuel outside of the fire box.
The present invention, on the other hand, avoids control motor damage and combustion chamber "burn back" because the invention lacks an auger in which solid particulate fuel can jam. The feed cylinder of the present invention, unlike an auger, is of such a large cross-sectional area in relation to fuel pellet size that jamming is virtually impossible.
Furthermore, conventional solid fuel feed systems, including auger based systems, are subject to a non-uniform feeding of fuel into the combustion chamber. This non-uniform feeding results in uneven combustion, which in turn results in variable temperatures, raised pollution levels, and excessive smoke and soot.
In contrast, the substantially uniform fuel feed rate of the present invention produces even fuel combustion which results in constant temperatures, lower pollution levels, and minimal smoke and soot.